George Fox students serve over spring break

More than 50 students from the university spent their break helping others in diverse cross-cultural settings.

More than 50 students joined employee leaders from George Fox University to spend their weeklong spring break serving others during the university’s annual Spring Serve.

During the week of March 24-28, students served in Yakima, Seattle and Neah Bay, Wash., as well as San Francisco, to work on service projects in various cross-cultural settings.

The following are descriptions of the five trips:

A team will serve at The Flying H Ranch, located 30 miles west of Yakima, Wash. The ranch ministers to at-risk youth. On this trip, the group will do physical labor as well as spend some time with the boys in worship, devotions, meals, games and conversation.

A team of students will serve with Urban Impact in Seattle, focusing on building relationships and serving in the community through the local church. The team will do a variety of work projects, which may include tutoring, service projects, administrative work and cleaning.

A group of students will go to San Francisco to work with ReImagine, a center for integrating Christian practice. The week will consist of guided prayer tours, trash pick-up, serving meals to people living on the streets, learning about local issues such as human trafficking and poverty, as well as spending time in group and individual spiritual reflection.

A team will travel to Neah Bay, Wash., to work on the Makah Indian Reservation. Service will include beach clean-up and assisting the elderly. Time will also be taken to learn about the culture and history of the Makah tribe and build relationships as volunteers work in the local community.

A group will partner with Mending Wings, a nonprofit Native American youth organization located on the Yakama Reservation in Washington state. Students will come alongside the reservation community to build trust and friendship while serving alongside them painting homes, cleaning yards of garbage and debris, chopping wood for elders, mowing, weeding gardens, working at a homeless shelter, doing light construction projects, and perhaps working at one of their local powwows.

Participating students were selected through an application process. They paid part of the costs of their trips, which are subsidized by the student government. Each of the trips had a faculty, staff, or alumni leader, assisted by two undergraduate student leaders.

The trips are part of the university’s commitment to Christian service, which also includes an annual day of service for which the university closes; community service projects that reach out to Newberg, Ore., and surrounding communities; and an urban services program that sends students to Portland and Salem, Ore., to build relationships with the homeless.